


i drew our car for you

by Septembers_coda



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bad Parenting, Child Neglect, Crying, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kindergarten, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, POV Outsider, Pre-Series, Protective Dean Winchester, Wee!chesters, wee!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2495750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septembers_coda/pseuds/Septembers_coda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing kindergarten teacher April Huxley has ever learned can tell her what to do when adorable, troubled little Dean Winchester falls into her life—or when he vanishes abruptly back out  of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i drew our car for you

April was only in her third year of teaching kindergarten, but she’d already learned to tell if something wasn’t quite right with a family. It didn’t happen that often, thank goodness, but when adorable little Dean Winchester arrived on the first day of school, she knew this was one of _those_ times.

Dean himself seemed OK. He didn’t have the behavior problems some kids came to her with, nor did he display any signs of the usual separation anxiety kids experienced on their first day of school. When his father dropped him off, Dean slammed the door of the big, black muscle car—something more suited to a teenager from a bad neighborhood than to a suburban father, she thought—and didn’t even glance over his shoulder at his father behind the wheel. He immediately ran to join the kids who were playing on the playground before school started, under the watchful (and some tearful) eyes of their parents, who were taking pictures, running up to her to ask questions, running back to straighten their child’s clothes or hair, and just generally fussing in that textbook first-day-of-school way, harder for them than for the kids, almost always. 

But not for Dean’s father, apparently. She had smiled at him—some parents needed a little encouragement to come and greet her the first time—and lifted her hand to wave, but he was driving away before she even finished the gesture. She watched, thinking he was probably looking for a parking spot, since he’d pulled into the handicapped space right at the curb to drop off Dean, but he just drove—too fast for a school zone, in her opinion—right around the corner and out of sight.

He wasn’t going to say anything to her at all? Not only was that unheard-of, it was against the rules. Someone had to sign Dean’s registration form, confirm that he had his required supplies, let the office know about any allergies or medical conditions—even parents who pre-registered their kids still had to sign them in on the first day, and she hadn’t met John Winchester at registration or Meet the Teacher night.

She was still staring in disbelief in the direction the improbable car had gone minutes later, giving it a chance to reappear, when she felt a tug at her sleeve and looked down.

“Are you Miss Huxley?” the little boy asked.

“Yes,” she said, putting on the smile that melted little hearts. “You must be Dean.” He was the last to arrive, and she’d memorized the class roster.

Was it possible that such an adorable little face could actually be suppressing an eye-roll? Dean certainly didn’t have any patience for small-talk. He pulled an envelope out of his backpack—an old, battered, full-sized one that drooped below his knees, not a little mini-pack like most of the kids carried, and, she thought, a little heavy-looking for a five-year-old. “My dad told me to give you this. He said everything you need is in there and to have me bring home anything else he had to sign. Also, I’m gonna be in both classes, morning and afternoon… if that’s OK.” Here he displayed his first sign of anxiety, his eyes sliding away from her face briefly.

It was unusual for a kid to be in all-day kindergarten, but not unheard-of. April smiled down at Dean. “OK, Dean. If your dad wants to meet me before the first—”

“Can I go play now?” Dean interrupted her. 

She was so taken aback she just nodded, and Dean fairly flew over the gravel, back to the slides, where he somehow, already, had friends. 

He’d been pretty normal for most of the rest of the day. April had cause to hope that it was just in her mind—the father’s strange attitude, Dean acting much older than his peers. He shed the over-responsible, slightly cynical air rather quickly. He was noisy, but very obedient. In fact, sometimes when she had to raise her voice over the clamor of the class to ask for quiet or redirect them, he was the only one who heard her right away. He was a very physical boy, but he was careful of the other kids on the playground, and showed no signs of being a bully. In fact, he gave a good chewing-out to Cory for stealing Jamie’s crayons, took them and gave them back to Jamie before April even got a chance to intervene. 

She had smiled at him then, and he had seemed… surprised? But he’d smiled back cheekily enough, and gone about his business.

So she’d almost let herself feel relieved that she could hope for a problem-free year when Dean sidled up to her, as the morning class was leaving and before she left to greet the afternoon class. They were alone in the classroom. 

“Miss Huxley?” Dean said. He squirmed a bit, his usual confidence missing. He hadn’t acted so much like a five-year-old all day. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“You can ask me anything, Dean.” She gave him her patented smile again, and it seemed to work this time. He relaxed a little and beamed up at her. God, he was cute. She’d gotten into teaching kindergarten partly because kids that age were so stinkin’ cute, she could hardly think of a better way to fill her days with happiness. Overall she’d succeeded, but now and then, a few times in her career, there was something that cast a shadow on all that kindergarten sunshine—like the calculated cant to Dean’s broad smile.

“My dad said I couldn’t,” Dean said. “He said not to ask you, but I don’t think he knew what a good teacher you’d be.” He dialed the smile up a few notches.

“Why, thank you, Dean,” she said, holding her own smile in place as the shadow crept over her. “What did you want to ask?”

“If I could bring Sammy to school with me,” he answered, all in a rush. “He wouldn’t be any trouble. He’s really quiet. And I’d take care of him, I promise.”

April breathed a sigh of relief. This she could handle. She smiled indulgently at Dean; oddly, his own pleading smile faded at the sight of hers, instead of looking reassured. “Is Sammy your dog?” she asked kindly.

“No! My baby brother. Only he’s not a baby anymore! He can… he can use the toilet by himself. Sometimes. I can lift him up! And… if he does need his diaper changed, I can do it. And he doesn’t cry like a baby. He can talk really good! Well, he does to me. And he walks… he’d be OK here, with me. I asked Dad if I could bring him with me today but… he said no.” 

Dean looked crestfallen for a moment, but rallied quickly. He put his hand on April’s knee and looked up at her; she noticed his eyes were very green. “Please, Miss Huxley?” he said.

April’s heart was touched, but she was also dismayed. It shouldn’t be such a wrong request, but... “We have to defer to your father on this one, Dean,” she said gently. “I’m sure he has someplace in mind for Sammy while you’re at school, either daycare or—”

“He’s supposed to be with _me. I_ take care of him,” Dean said shortly, dropping his hand and his charming, aggressively cute manner at once. April was again struck by how much older than five Dean seemed, and suddenly she was overwhelmed with sadness for him.

“Your dad takes care of him, right?” she prompted gently. Dean scowled and didn’t answer. “Or… what about your mom?”

“She’s dead,” said Dean bluntly. 

April was truly shocked, so much so that she couldn’t reply for a moment. She’d met a child or two with a dead parent, but always before, this had been explained to her explicitly when the child was registered for school. It was always tricky to navigate, but she’d never seen a child react this way… coolly, even cynically. She was actually relieved when tears sprang to Dean’s eyes, finally.

“Forget it,” he said, manfully choking back those tears and scrubbing at them impatiently with his fist. He turned and ran out the door, propped open to welcome the afternoon class, to the playground.

“Wait! Dean… come back!” she called. But for the first time since he’d arrived, Dean disobeyed.

***

She watched him carefully after that. She saw other signs that Dean’s family situation was not normal. One day, during crafts time, she saw him yawning and rubbing his eyes in between gluing popsicle sticks together, then he actually nodded off during story time. In April’s experience, a child of five rarely lacked energy; indeed, her greatest challenge was to induce calm, particularly at naptime. But that day, when she got out the mats and settled the kids in for their rest, Dean fell asleep instantly and didn’t wake up when the other children scattered for recess. When she approached and said his name, he leapt up as if shocked, looked around bewilderedly, and ran out the door before she could question him. Her heart sank: it was an extremely bad sign.

She tried to find moments alone with him, so she could ask the carefully cultivated, neutral-seeming questions that would tell her if the situation were at the level where interference would be required. But after that first day, Dean developed an eerie instinct for avoiding her. The more determined she became, the more skill he displayed, until he earned the nickname of Stealth Child in her head. She’d watch out for him in the morning before class, and just when she was sure he must be absent that day, there his little freckled face would be, sandwiched in among the others and regarding her innocently as she called role.

His father displayed even greater stealth. She never saw the big black car after the first day, except once when she caught a glimpse of its taillights as it whipped around the corner. She wasn’t sure if Dean got dropped off to school most days, or if he walked. She never laid eyes on John Winchester again at all.

One day, a cold, hard rain necessitated indoor recess. April had many weapons in her arsenal to combat this dreaded happenstance, and as she set up the special toys, crafts, and snacks to distract her little inmates, she noticed Dean retreating to a corner by the students’ cubbies. She’d never noticed before, but there was a sort of cave between the cubbies and the shallow part-wall that separated it from her story-time area, which was set up with beanbags and cushions for the little ones to lounge on while she read to them. It was just the right size for a little boy’s hideout, and might well be the key to Dean’s success in avoiding her for weeks.

She walked by casually, peering out of the corner of her eye so as not to put him on his guard. She saw a hint of motion in the shadowed recess. She glanced around the classroom, and saw that the rest of her students were gathered at the opposite end, clamoring around the teacher’s aide, who was serving them snacks.

She walked wide and circled back to the story-time area, carefully seating herself in the beanbag nearest Dean’s little cave. It backed directly to it. She sat still and strained her ears over the noise of the classroom, and heard Dean talking quietly to himself.

“Right, Uncle Bobby? Right, John,” Dean was saying. She recognized the dialogue of a kid wrapped in his imagination, playing two roles. “This here’s a good spirit deterrent. Draw a nice thick line, now. Don’t forget your silver. It works on shifters and werewolves both. Got to be a genuine silver knife, though. Remember: iron for ghosts, silver for shifters.” 

Dean’s voice changed as he said, “What about good old-fashioned shotguns, Bobby?”

April felt a thrill of pure fear, of a kind that she had never experienced in her classroom. She knew, quite suddenly, that she was far out of her depth. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about how she would handle it if an extreme abuse case landed in her classroom. But this was something for which she had no template at all. Dean was too active and happy, most of the time, for her to believe he was badly abused. Neglected, maybe, but nothing that would stand up under inspection by the authorities. She could decide that Dean had merely seen some age-inappropriate movies, which he was now reenacting. But her instincts wouldn’t let her believe it. Using his father’s name in one of his play-roles could not be a coincidence, either. And didn’t she recall that a Robert Singer was Dean’s secondary emergency contact? Could that be the Uncle Bobby in Dean’s fantasy?

She heard Dean’s play continue. “Gaaaah! It’s a vengeful spirit! It got me! Load the salt rounds, Bobby!” 

April eyed the other students, who were happily eating their snacks and investigating the rainy-day toys. She had a few more minutes. Between Dean’s murmurs, she said in a gentle but carrying voice, “Dean, honey. Why don’t you come over to the story-time place for a minute?”

She heard him gasp and fall silent. She kept her voice perfectly calm as she said, “It’s OK, Dean. Just come here.”

There was a silence, then she heard him shuffling out of his hideout. She prepared to stand up and intercept him if he made a run for it, but instead, his wide-eyed face peeked around the corner, as if unsure she would really be there. She smiled at him and patted her beanbag. “Come here, honey,” she repeated gently.

He came, dragging his feet and looking both downcast and frightened. “It’s OK,” she said, forcing brightness into her tone. “I just want to hear more about the game you were playing just now.”

“It’s not a game,” Dean blurted. He instantly looked guilty, like he regretted the words, but he didn’t take them back. He was dragging his backpack. He looked away from it quickly, deliberately trying to divert her attention from it.

“Sit here,” she said kindly, “and show me what’s in your backpack.” Per her teacher’s instinct, she said the latter firmly, brooking no argument.

Dean froze, wide-eyed, clutching the backpack to his chest. He didn’t move for a long moment. Then he sat next to her, and opened the pack, watching her face.

She stared uncomprehendingly for a moment. The first thing she saw was an ordinary box of salt. There was also a butter knife, some odd jewelry, including beaded rosaries, and more disturbingly, a big, rusty railroad spike. She removed this carefully and set it aside. There was no way she could leave it in the possession of a child. No wonder his backpack looked so heavy. Further rummaging revealed a flask, which also disturbed her deeply. She opened it and sniffed it fearfully.

“It’s holy water,” Dean said helpfully. “Uncle Bobby has a different flask for whiskey. It’s medicinal.”

Well, at least it wasn’t his father with the flask. 

April didn’t know what to say, which of the innumerable questions thronging her brain she could ask of a little boy. As she floundered, Dean said quietly, “Monsters are real. Dad fights them. I’m not supposed to know, but I do. I took this stuff so I can protect Sam and me. I could do it better if I could have him at school with me.” 

April’s thoughts and instincts warred with each other. This could easily be a kid with a vivid imagination. Really, it was most likely nothing to worry about. But her fears would not be quieted. There was one thing she needed to know, and she didn’t know how to ask: was it only Dean who believed his father fought monsters, or did his father believe it, too? The latter could be truly dangerous.

After she didn’t speak for a moment, to her surprise, Dean crawled onto the beanbag with her and snuggled close to her side. She put an arm around him, and he laid his head in her lap.

“Mom used to sit with me like this. Dad doesn’t,” Dean observed calmly. “He’s too busy.” He seemed to feel better now that he’d confessed, and had not gotten in trouble for the contents of his backpack.

“Too busy… fighting monsters?” April said carefully.

“Yeah, or reading books about them. I can’t read that good yet, but some books have pictures,” he said.

Oh, no. “Your dad has books about monsters?”

“He doesn’t keep most of them. They’re big and old and wouldn’t fit in the car with all our stuff when we have to move. He finds them different places we go, and Uncle Bobby has a lot of them. Dad writes stuff down from them in his book. He draws pictures in there, too. He can draw really good! I want to learn to draw like that.”

Her question had been answered. Poor Dean. His father was clearly mentally ill, possibly his uncle was, too, and they were infecting Dean with this madness. Dean and his brother would grow up with erroneous, unhealthy beliefs at the very least, and could suffer ritualistic abuse at worst. There was no way around it: she had to talk to John Winchester, and try to determine if his children were safe with him.

She had no idea what she could do if they were not.

* * *

They were interrupted before April could get further with Dean in their little heart-to-heart. She had twenty other five-year-olds to keep track of, after all. But Dean didn’t avoid her after that. At the end of the day, she approached him while the other kids were leaving, meeting their parents on the playground or at the curb.

“Dean,” she said, carefully casual, “Your dad sounds really interesting. I’d like to meet him. Is he picking you up today?”

Dean squirmed. April recognized the struggle within him, between what he’d been told to say and the truth, between his father’s authority and his teacher’s. Finally he said, “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“Whether or not your dad is picking you up?”

“He isn’t,” Dean said quickly.

“Do you walk home by yourself?” she asked, in as close to a neutral tone as she could manage.

Dean twisted around, shuffling his feet. “Yes,” he finally answered cautiously.

A question occurred to April that she suddenly realized was of paramount importance. “Dean… where does Sam go during the day while you’re at school?”

Dean seemed shocked, not by the question itself, but by the wave of distress that had always been in him that was released by it. “He’s not with us! I haven’t seen him since the first day of school! Dad said he was going to take him to spend some time with a lady he knows. I didn’t know until I got home from school! Sam’s going to stay with her until Dad finishes this job. But I want to go find him and bring him to school with me. I don’t know where the lady lives, but I can look in Dad’s book. Will you help me find Sam, Miss Huxley?”

She had no idea how to answer. Finally she just said, “I don’t know if I can, Dean. When you say your dad has to finish this job… how long will that take, and what will happen then?”

“We’ll get Sam back,” Dean chirped happily, “and then we’ll probably be in the car for a while. I like it there! It’s the best car. But Dad says I have to go to school most of the time now, so we’ll have to find another school, and I have to take Sam with me if I can. I don’t like it when he’s not here. I don’t know if that lady knows how to protect him. Dad said I was supposed to, but then he took him away.” 

He looked up at her with a face suddenly creased with heartbreakingly vivid distress. Tears sprang to his eyes immediately. “Maybe I didn’t do a good enough job,” he said. “We played in the bath too long one night, and Sam got really cold. Dad was mad.”

April squatted next to Dean and hugged him tightly. He clung back with surprising strength, and she picked him up. “What did your dad do when he was mad, Dean?” she asked, trying to keep her intense dread out of her voice. She carried him to a chair and sat down with him in her lap.

“He dried off Sam and yelled at me to dry myself. He wrapped Sam in a blanket and said I should know better, and that I had to look after my brother.”

April didn’t think her heart could break any further. She struggled to contain her emotion. Suddenly she wished, more than she had ever wished anything in her life, that she _could_ help Dean find Sam—and then take them both far away, where John Winchester would never find them, and keep them for her own.

Still, she needed to know more. She needed to know how bad it really got. She had to build a case for Child Protective Services.

“What happened then?” she asked.

“He said I needed warmer pajamas. He got upset that I didn’t have any. He said he was sorry, that he’d get me some. He put me in bed with Sam. I asked if he was still mad, and he said he wasn’t. But then why did he take Sam away?” Dean’s distress peaked with these words, and he cried all the harder. He seemed to finally be releasing some great fear or grief. She held him tightly and he sobbed into her shoulder. She found herself deeply relieved, both that John Winchester at least seemed to care about his children, even if he was no fit parent, and that Dean could cry like this. The longer she held him, the younger he seemed, until at last he was just like any other frightened five-year-old.

“Dean, honey,” she finally said, carefully. “I know your dad said you have to look after your brother. But I don’t think your dad knows as much about five-year-olds as I do. Maybe he doesn’t know that five is too little to be looking after someone littler all the time. I think you did great with Sam!” she added quickly, when Dean opened his mouth to protest. “You’re a really good older brother. But because you’re good at something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for you to have to do it, do you understand?”

“Like Dad hunting monsters,” Dean murmured, scrubbing at his face.

April’s heart clenched. “Yes. Like that.”

“He says we won’t have to forever. I mean, not to me. But he told Uncle Bobby that once he catches the thing that killed Mom, he’s going to settle down and raise us right. He said he hopes by the time Sam has to go to school, he can go to the same school until he graduates.”

April sighed. _But what about you, Dean?_ she wanted to ask. But unlike John Winchester, she had no intention of putting such burdens on a five-year-old. 

She was especially concerned that John believed a monster killed their mother. She had dug into Dean’s records, and they showed that his mother had been killed in a house fire. Now she wondered if John Winchester might have been responsible for the fire, since he was apparently very ill mentally. Possibly it was the reverse—the loss of his wife might have snapped his connection to sanity.

“I have to go home now,” Dean said suddenly, squirming on her lap. “Dad might get home early today.”

Meaning, she supposed, that Dean usually went home to an empty house. He was awfully young to be a latchkey kid, but it seemed the least of his worries.

“OK, Dean,” she said, setting him on his feet. “How about this? I said I wanted to meet your father. I’ll come home with you and stay until he gets home.”

Dean’s face lit up. Like most five-year-olds, his whole body expressed joy. But it faded just as quickly, and gloom descended on him. “I’m not allowed,” he said. “No one’s supposed to come over. I’d get in trouble, and then it might be a long time before I see Sam.”

“Well, Dean,” April said firmly, “I’m your teacher, and I say it’s OK. Your dad is supposed to listen to me, and I need to meet him. So I’m going to come over.”

Dean squirmed again, but looked faintly relieved beneath his worry. “OK,” he said cautiously.

“Wait right here,” she instructed firmly. “I have to lock up and get my things. It will only take a minute.”

“Yes, Miss Huxley,” Dean answered with his usual automatic obedience.

But when she returned from the office, he was gone.

* * *

She never saw Dean Winchester again.

She looked for him. When she returned to find him gone from the classroom, she ran to the door, looked wildly in every direction and called his name. She got into her car and drove slowly down all the streets connected to the school, looking for any trace of him. She returned to the school and looked up the address John had registered Dean under. She knew the street, but could not find the house. There was a strip mall on that side of the street. Finally she drove into the parking lot, and found the address on the door of a dry cleaning shop.

No one ever answered at the phone number John had provided. When Dean didn’t come to school the next day, she also called Robert Singer. That number was disconnected. Four days later, the school received a typed letter stating that Dean had to be taken out of school due to a family emergency, that the family was moving, and Dean would not be returning to Kensington Elementary.

She called the police and CPS. Both said there was nothing they could do; nothing illegal had taken place, and CPS couldn’t intervene on behalf of a child they couldn’t find. She looked for John Winchester’s criminal record—he had none. She even hired a private detective, but he returned her deposit, minus his starter’s fee, after two weeks with no leads.

She couldn’t bear to give up on Dean Winchester. She was plagued by an intuitive worry. She didn’t just suspect that things were bad for him—she _knew._

She started sleeping badly. She had nightmares. She knew her worry was becoming an unhealthy obsession, but she was helpless to it. Every time she told herself to stop—resolved to let it go—she could not sleep at all, and spent her nights prowling her home, double and triple checking the locks on her doors and windows, and wondering if there was a chance John Winchester was right—that there were monsters in the world.

Or if he was one of them.

No one seemed to understand her fear and worry; they told her to let it go. She stopped talking to her coworkers about it when she found a card for a therapist on her desk.

Finally an older, fifth-grade teacher, one near retirement whom April didn’t know well, approached her. Kendra told April stories of the abuse cases she’d witnessed, some of whom she could help, most of whom she couldn’t. She’d had model students with no apparent problems who were concealing all kinds of horrors in their home lives. She had suspected abuse where none was ever found, believed parents were terrible and found just the opposite when they met. So many times, she said, all was explained. There were far more gray areas than black and white—so much that children had to deal with that a teacher, even the most involved one, could never hope to understand fully. 

“We just never know everything, April,” she said gently. “What you have to remember is, you can’t save everyone. But you don’t know for sure that Dean Winchester needed to be saved. I know it looks bad. But everyone, even children, has their path to walk. Dean’s path has parted from yours. You have to let him go.”

But April’s heart didn’t know how to follow Kendra’s advice.

A little over a year after Dean’s abrupt departure, she still hadn’t been able to give up, though she hadn’t learned anything new in months. One day she picked up the mail from the school office and saw something strange.

On an old, creased envelope was taped a piece cut out of the school letterhead she used to send home memos to parents—the header with the school’s name and address. Above it, in pencil and child’s writing, was scrawled _Mis. huxley._

She tore it open hastily and found a much-folded piece of the type of wide-ruled practice paper she and other teachers used to help children learn to write. She unfolded it to reveal, on one side, a child’s drawing of a car. She peered at it carefully. There was a strange shape in the back window that she couldn’t interpret; it appeared to be a stick figure sticking out of an oblong bubble-shape. She recognized a part of the drawing as an arrow pointing to the stick figure. It was labelled _sam._ Underneath the picture was written _i drew our car for you._

Her heart leapt into her mouth. She took a deep, steadying breath and turned the paper over. She found a letter. There were many backwards and poorly-formed letters and misspelled words, but she was an expert at deciphering these. Concentrating hard, she made out these words:

dear Mis huxley

I still Remember you and my first day of ~~kendg kindar~~ school. i herd my dad tell uncel Bobbe that you are still looking. For me

i wanted to tell you that I Am O.K. i have sam with me every day now and 

he likes our new Babysitter who takes care of us after School i go to a diferrent School now. but you shuld not try to find me because i am O.K. and so is sam.

this leter is hard to write but i wanted to say Ime Sorry. That you couldent come home from school with me That Day and that i never sed goodby 

but we had to leave qick so dad culd take care of someone. he sed Sorry to. I liked your clas Room and I think you are very prety and I wish I could merry you when I grow up but maybe you could merry My Dad afetr he finds the monster. Bobbe says he is a Dam good Looking Man and he is nicer than I sed.

I wish you met sam he says Hi. 

love  
dean W.

April didn’t realize that she was crying until a fat tear fell onto Dean’s last sentence, blurring it. She carefully refolded the letter and put it back into its envelope. Her tears were a great relief. She looked around to make sure she was alone and let them flow.

After a while, she took out the letter and closely inspected the envelope. There was no return address. The postmark said Lead, SD. The part of her that had been acting like a private detective for so long pounced on this clue. She could contact all the elementary schools in that part of South Dakota and ask if they had any new students. She could give them Dean’s description, and maybe the car’s. She could—

She could let it go.

_you shuld not try to find me because i am O.K. and so is sam._

She unfolded the letter and peered at the drawing. It was pretty good for a first grader; she could recognize the black muscle car she’d only seen once. 

She’d seen enough kid’s drawings to have learned the special language they spoke. The longer she looked at it, the more she saw. There was a big sun shining in the sky over the car. There was a dotted line under it for the road, and lines drawn behind it to represent speed. She realized that the shape in the back window with the stick figure coming out of it was meant to represent Sam’s car seat. His hands waved in the air out of the window.

He was smiling.

April smiled, too. It felt like the first time in months.

“Goodbye, Dean,” she said, as she tucked the letter in her box of keepsakes at home that night. Although it would be many years before she took it out and looked at it again, she would never forget a word of it.

When she turned out the light, her sleep was deep and sweet, without dreams.

The End


End file.
